I have just bought myself a sitz bath… not a terribly attractive piece of equipment but something tells me it is going to bring untold pleasure after giving birth. There are various types of sitz baths, I bought mine at a local pharmacy which fits on a toilet seat and is filled with water. Anyway, the interesting thing here is not the sitz bath but the herbs and spices you can stick in the water which can have all sorts of remedial effects on your recovering vagina post delivery. One piece of advice by mega herbalist Susun Weed is to limit your sitz bath to once a day if you have had stitches.
Mine sort of looks like this image but without the water bag. I just fill up the wee pink tub with water, put it on the toilet seat and wade……

Here are a few products available for a therapeutic sitz bath. I ordered them all and I have to say they all absolutely helped in those first couple of weeks. How can I put this softly???  You are bleeding a lot and you may not have a lot of time to sit in the bath and clean yourself. The sitz bath not only helps you to feel clean it also cool things down there and generally help with the recovery process. Each one of these products probably gave me 3-4 baths which may be all you need unless you had heavy tearing in which case, you may want to order more. Find yourself a magazine or book and when the baby is asleep, go and give yourself a few minutes of attention.

Herb Lore has an herbal combination to be brewed as a tea and used in a sitz bath, peri bottle or regular bath to help soothe and heal the mother’s perineal.vaginal area. They also recommend these herbs for the baby too especially for healing the umbilical stump. The herbs used include shepherd’s purse (a great blood coagulant), comfrey root and leaf (promotes speedy wound healing), garlic (herbal antibiotic), myrrh (stimulates white blood production with a direct anti-microbial effect), uva ursi (kills bacteria and great disinfectant), lavender (calming and soothing) and sage (anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory).

Herb Lore recommends an interesting frozen ice pack treatment too which sounds very soothing. Make the herbal tea as recommended on the pack (one pack = one gallon of water) and soak sanitary pads in the tea (you should fold the pads in half and stick them together with the adhesive part stuck together on the inside). Then place the pads in a tupperware, separating layers (rather like making a lasagna) with wax paper to avoid everything freezing together. Then place the tupperware in the freezer and have it ready after delivery. Stick the pads in a waterproof pair of underwear (oh ladies I didn’t say this was going to be glamorous) which I believe you can find back at the pharmacy (one reommendation is Kotex Personals) and then just lie back and think of something else because things will feel decidedly cooler down there pretty quickly I believe. (I have to try this out…..).

This looks like another interesting product by Motherlove.
This bath soothes sore perineal muscles, reduces swelling, slows bleeding, and heals tears.

Another interesting bath product I found is by Earth Mama.
Their blend includes salts, oatmeal comfrey leaf, witch hazel, lavender and yarrow and is served up in muslin bags which you steep like tea either in your sitz bath or you place directly on your perineum either warm or refrigerated.

I hope all of this is going to make you rush to the pharmacy and buy a sitz bath. Your vagina will definitely thank you for it.

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January 23rd, 2007 | Permalink